


moon without the stars

by valediction



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10042871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valediction/pseuds/valediction
Summary: Teepo is not a daemon.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a side drabble separate from a another piece I'm working on.

Dalimil doesn’t speak much anymore, not even to her. His forms are pretty and striking but outside of the initial impression unobtrusive, a rune butterfly in her hair one day, a jeweled beetle at her collar the next. Sometimes he’s so still she can forget he’s alive, or something more than the pins and baubles he sometimes playacts as. He’ll shift, then, into some softer shape that can curl into her collar or around her wrist, up her sleeve, and if nothing else the warmth of his form is a reminder of Them.

People start mistaking Teepo for her daemon, eventually, and Elize doesn’t correct them. Teepo is her friend and speaks up for her when she… she can’t, and Dalimil won’t. And she’s thankful. She knows it’s strange, that _Teepo_ is strange, his mannerisms too forward and too coarse as far as daemons go, but the people of Hamil already don’t much like her anyway, so if Teepo doesn’t mind speaking her thoughts for her then she doesn’t mind either.

———

She has to put Teepo away. Teepo is just a reflection of herself in the end, and she’ll never learn to grow up on her own if she keeps relying on him.

But here she is, holding the booster out in front of her, above the box.

“Aww, come on. Don’t be that way! Just put me down, all easy like!”

And she hasn’t even deactivated him yet.

Teepo wiggles a little, but looks at her in a way he thinks is probably comforting. Despite the reassuring words, the booster doesn’t much look like it wants to go in the box either.

But that’s to be expected. He’s just an aspect of her, and she’s having trouble with this, so he would too. Elize bites her lip, but before she can steel herself, a flutter of scaled wings sounds from the corner of her vision and— another voice cuts in. 

“You…” says Dalimil, perched delicately on an ear. “You’re a part of us too.” 

It’s the first thing she’s heard him say in years.

**Author's Note:**

> according to behindthename:
> 
> dalimil - masculine. czech. slovak. derived from the Slavic elements dali meaning "distance" and milu meaning "gracious, dear".


End file.
